Hey, Mare:

I also think Hoya cummingiana stinks like the dickens. It is a shame, too, since it is such an interesting, easily grown plant. Once my plant got large enough to produce several bloom clusters at once, I had to get rid of it since I could barely breathe in the room I had it growing in. Now that you mention it, it did smell somewhat like old tires...LOL! Certainly nothing like the wonderfully sweet and fruity Hoya obscura which does not even get a fraction of the praise it deserves.

LOL--have been wondering to myself what Ispahan thinks, because you and I seem to be wired similarly in the olefactory sense! Also agree 100% on the obscura. Thanks yet again for corroborating!

Hi Mare,

"eau de petrolium products" too darn funny, I abt fell over when I read this. I have a David Cumingiana too (that's the name the cutting came with), but it's too small to be thinking of blooming; sounds like maybe that's a good thing, huh?

I too enjoyed the smell of Obscura, one of my 1st Hoyas to bloom, I always think of Lesli/GA's son who described its fragrance as sort of Lemony Fruit Loops! Kinda cute I thought!

I have been waiting and hoping that my cummingiana would 'get into gear' and bloom. It's outside , hanging around in a group with other Hoya 'friends'. The vines are growing better , now that I have it receiving more sun.
Anyway ,after reading this post , I am no longer in a hurry for flowers !!! Ha ! :)

Meliflua finally started to bloom . The flowers are pretty , but the scent is terrible.....quite like rotten fruit. Sour watermelon is a fairly accurate description.
I even tried smelling it at night , trying to be open minded and get used to it. Yuck ! This one is messy , too.
I had brownish/orange nectar on the plant bench. I thought the ants would come , but they seemed to avoid the area.
Thank goodness for good old compacta. I'll take that sweet liquid rich chocolate smell , any day !

Florajilly

You are speaking about H. Cummingiana not davidcummingii, correct? I only have the latter, but isn't that the one Pirate Girl was commenting on? I may have spelled the latter incorrectly, but you were commenting about cummingiana, yes?

Thanks for your input. Sorry that the scent is disagreeable, maybe we should ask the vendors to also include a description of the scent (terrific, nasty, stinky, or unscented) LOL

Vicki

The problem with descriptions of scent is that our perceptions of fragrance are 100% subjective: what is gloriously perfumed to one person may smell vile to another. There is really no way of knowing if we will like a certain scent unless we sample it with our own noses :-)

Thats true. I liked the scent, but Paul thought it smelled like cleaning fluid.
Another problem is that one may have the wrong plant identified as H. cummingiana. I recently saw the very similar one I have labled as H. golamcoiana selling in a nursery as cummingiana. So that ones flowers may smell intirely different. I don't know as mine has not bloomed.
Marcy

P.G. and Florajilly, I certainly donÂt mean to discourage anyone from cumingiana (sp??) or davidcummingii (two different plants I assume were named after the same person)! Like the above people said, I think it just has to do with a genetic ability to detect certain chemicals, and the point is that most people clearly think this plant smells wonderful!
Ispahan, subjective or not, IÂm thinking it would save me time and money if you would say if there are any others that you either like or donÂt like?!! ;)
Good point, Marcy--and isn't densifolia similar, too? This has the small, round leaves. Wish I could blame the plant, but I suspect it's just me. Kind of depressing, though, because it is such a cute one!

My cummingiana just finished with it's first inflorescence, but I was busy and almost missed it. It was nearly finished by the time I checked it out, and I didn't notice any smell at all... although I didn't stick my nose right against it. Now I'm really curious about how it would have smelled when it first opened. I guess I'll give a little dose of bloom booster and wait :)

Hey Mare:

If you have room for some more large houseplants, try the night-scented Brunfelsias (the ones with white flowers) and tropical Hymenocallis. As a group, they are my two current favorites for fragrance.

My cumingiana smells like a mix of citrus and coconut and the combination smells lovely! It's all in the nose of the smeller, I guess.

My davidcummingii smells like candy and when the flowers get older they smell like sour milk, which is not too pleasant.

Thanks Ispahan--have been afraid of Brunfelsias since I murdered an australis a few years back, but maybe it's time to try again?
Moonbeam, I am so jealous! Do have to wonder how much of my cummingina stench is due to the particular plant I have, though. This is just sooo far from the scent you descibed! I have obscuras from two different sources that don't smell quite the same. One is definite Fruit Loops and the other has more gardenia to it.
Know I'm not the only one who appreciates hearing "scent reports," though--like Florajilly's Meliflua, etc. Even if not eveybody agrees, it gives an idea! Thanks!

lol! True...the beauty is in the 'nose' of the beholder!

Mine just bloomed, too, and although it didn't smell *awful* to me....it wasn't altogether pleasant....I can't describe it, but did note a slight 'clove' scent mixed with ???

Just thought I'd add it's definitely me and not the particular plant. Did a "show & smell" poll at a garden club meeting and added that to family members, and here are the rough results:
20%=Coconut, or coconut with maybe cloves
40%=Citrus or citrus and something else (pleasant)
30%=Pretty much what Nanw, above, said
10%=Weird gaggy chemical or rubber smell
Go figure!!! Thanks for your input! :o)